This is a constant work in progress with newer articles and finds posted to the top of the page.

One PWOD activist chastised me for using the term “inspiration porn” because it detracted from and minimized the damage and injury of “real porn” , but inspiration porn IS real porn. It is the depiction of a dehumanized and objectified person as other, for the gratification of the gaze of the viewer. It is everything porn is– exploitation, dehumanization, objectification, commercialization, abuse. We deserve to use that term an name our experience without the additional gaze of those who think liberation, revolution and justice doesn’t include us or can be carried out without us.

A constant work in progress, new material to be added until the abuse stops.

Most people when abused, cyber stalked, harassed and bullied, quietly go away. This makes it easier to start over. There is no trail of them making a fuss. Fewer people will know about the abuse. Because abuse attracts more abuse. Once you are marked as a target there is a popular notion that you brought it on yourself, that there must be some truth to the accusations, that you are an easy mark.

I am not a good victim. I go down screaming. I leave nail marks in the wall. I spin the wheel of the car to escape. I write about it. I will tell the story. I want my victimization to be known. I want those who read this language to be warned. I leave a map so others will know where it is safe to tread. I do not give my abuser the luxury of moving on, not that easy.

I am disappointed in many people who run away. Who do not talk down the abuse, who pretend it is not their comrade or their community. Who participate in the illusion that it is ever about the victim or their reaction, or that this is at all personal.

There are models of community accountability. Public ostracism, threats and character assassination is never acceptable. We must start to understand too, that when one person is targeted, none of us is safe. Bullies will choose the most vulnerable, but that doesn’t make the online abuse any less a community issue. Supporting the victim is a collective responsibility. Failure to do so is a collective failure.

Abusers that go unchallenged will continue to abuse, will gain power each time they are allowed to get away with the abuse.

Those committing character assassination must hurl accusations they know are not true. If they were true, one could rebut, respond, make amends, demonstrate accountability. This would not serve the assassin. For the assassin it is important to destroy the opponent, not change them. A series of false accusations, to which the accused can’t honestly confess is much more powerful in providing the illusion that the person under attack is not willing to dialogue, not willing to take responsibility. But one cannot be responsible for the false accusations hurled at them, like stones at a stoning. It is the fault of the one who throws.

In our on line lives, proof is so much easier than in our analog world. Before believing an abusive tirade or an underhanded compliment demand proof. Don’t go along for the ride. Accountability requires evidence. Make them show receipts.

LINKS: (Most recent additions listed first, so that readers who have visited this post before, can find new material at the top of the list. Articles are not in chronological order, but rather the order in which I encountered them.- Emma)

Silicon Valley CEO Ruins 2 Years of Chinese Designer’s Work With a Single Tweet“

“The half-apology only came after the damage had been done and his comments were all over social media and in the Maker community here in China. He knew this would be devastating to my reputation and professional prospects — he also knew I would have no recourse. He waited a few more days and emailed with a vague sort of ‘I have no idea what I can do’ as if I was being unreasonable after he destroyed two years work? I don’t know what to say to him.

“For myself, I’m kind of looking at the wreckage and not really sure what to do. For Westerners who don’t understand the importance of reputation in China it seems like a very minor thing — it is everything here and there’s no repairing this.””

Jazz Jennings had a heart-breaking response to a Duggar’s insultsCis-het men spend decades calling people assigned male at birth, who don’t “man up”, “girls” and then when some of them agree, and declare they are girls and women, these same gender enforcer dudebros can’t handle it.

“Emma Rosenthal & Andy Griggs are once again under attack by those who don’t support their work in Palestine solidarity.As owners of DragonflyHill Urban Farm, they recently experienced a barrage of 1 star reviews from over 1700 people who had never been to DragonflyHill Urban Farm but were upset with a review left by DragonflyHill Urban Farm on an Amazon page.
People who had never been to their urban farm pretended they had, making claims about filth and vermin, others claimed that the hosts discriminated against Jews and Iraelis. Others wrote hate speech and threats, while others simply posted in their 1 star review Am Yisroel Chai in both Hebrew letters and in transliteration (Long Live Israel.). (How the hosts could have had so many Israeli & Jewish guests and were simultaneously discriminating against them, is a mystery best solved in the conclusion that it just isn’t possible for this small business to have even had 1700 clients in the course of 2 days, especially considering that their Aibnb profile provides 275 reviews collected over a 2 year period. (Airbnb reviews can only be left by people who have stayed with the host through Airbnb. Facebook reviews have no similar burden of proof. Anyone can post a false review. )” https://cafeintifada.wordpress.com/2017/06/26/blacklist-remake-white-supremacist-zionist-bedfellows/Blacklist Remake: White Supremacist & Zionist Bedfellows

At the same time that DragonflyHill Urban Farm came under attack, with much of the attack focused on Emma Rosenthal, a Jewish woman with a conspicuously Jewish last name, a similar attack was waged against Reem’s Bakery in Oakland. Both DragonflyHill Urban Farm and Reem’s Bakery were accosted with hundreds of false reviews. Reem reports that she was also subjected to a barrage of threatening phone calls.
“The bakery’s positive depiction of her has spawned a controversy as summarized in this sharply worded op-ed in J., the Jewish News of Northern California. In the piece, venture capitalist Daniel Frankenstein criticized Assil’s decision to feature a mural of Odeh. A series of coordinated Yelp attacks followed, in which users claimed there was blood in the bakery’s dough and an open endorsements of terrorism on the walls.”https://sf.eater.com/2017/6/23/15820576/reems-arab-bakery-rasema-odeh-oakland-controversy

“In 2017, it is Yassmin Abdel-Magied, a 26-year-old mechanical engineer who argued her Muslim faith could be feminist, and wrote a Facebook post on Anzac Day about remembering other people fleeing from, and suffering as a result of, wars today. Some of this is provocative. Not ill-intentioned, but ill-timed. But hardly incendiary. You’ll hear similar ideas about how to remember war debated among students and veterans alike.
The reaction has been lacking in all proportion and reason. In the past few weeks, a crowd bearing torches have gathered in the town square and jabbed fists in the air: Deport her! Sack her! Run her over! Shut her down! Seize her passport! Shut the gates! Pull up the drawbridge! Front-page stories, editorials, polls, a clogging of social media arteries.”http://www.smh.com.au/comment/yassmin-abdelmagied-the-latest-woman-to-be-roasted-on-the-spit-of-public-life-20170714-gxb6qh.htmlYassmin Abdel-Magied: the latest woman to be roasted on the spit of public life

“A lot has been written about the consequences of doing activism online, particularly if you work in the feminist space. Too often, these testimonies or complaints are dismissed as the rantings of oversensitive baby-women. We provoke it, we’re told. Some of us are even accused of courting it, laying traps to ensnare the splendid chaps who wouldn’t normally dream of dropping by to talk about the various ways you should be beaten or violated but who just couldn’t resist telling you this one time how your face looks like a bridge fell on it.”http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/news-and-views/opinion/clementine-ford-this-is-the-personal-price-i-pay-for-speaking-out-online-20170713-gxaa6z.htmlClementine Ford: This is the personal price I pay for speaking out online

““We want to make the internet safer. The people who are disproportionately impacted by harassment are women and particularly women of color. Those voices are systematically harassed and over time they’re excluded, because they have to go out and take care of themselves,” says May. “There’s hope out there in believing that strangers give a shit about you, they’re not just out to harass you.” ”https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/new-website-helps-bystanders-support-victims-online-harassmentA NEW WEBSITE HELPS BYSTANDERS SUPPORT VICTIMS OF ONLINE HARASSMENT

“More people are finally taking notice of the abuse. But there’s still a dearth of discussion on why it’s happening. The culprit isn’t anonymity, often the go-to answer for why the Internet can’t have nice things. Instead, it’s believing in the exceptionality of the Internet—and online gaming—that allows the abuses within, and it is enabled every time someone utters, “It’s just a game.”That phrase is the machine to which oppressive power dynamics are the ghost. How many times have you heard someone say “It’s the Internet; you shouldn’t take that seriously”? This kind of thinking supports the idea you can do anything you want with no consequences, when in all actuality, virtual actions like sexual harassment, stalking, abuse, prejudice in all of its forms—racism, sexism, transphobia, or all of the above—do have consequences.”https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/game-changer-0 GAME CHANGER WHY GAMING CULTURE ALLOWS ABUSE… AND HOW WE CAN STOP IT

“All we do by feigning ignorance is allow the propagators to move on to another target (as one friend said), fester and lash out harder, continuing to believe they’re invincible.Leslie’s approach was to showcase the hate she was receiving, encouraging people to actively call out and address the hate groupies. I think we need to consider doing this proactively rather than waiting for things to boil over. As several have said—including Leslie—the majority of people online aren’t bad but the bad ones are the loudest.
If we can make our love louder and show the racists, bigots, sexists, and all the rest that we’re not letting them dominate our discourse, we can make real change. We can prevent more of these hate campaigns. We can drive the bad out and refuse to let them profit off of their message.
But it has to start now, and it’s going to take more effort than just reacting.”https://www.amalanetwork.com/2016/07/19/gamergates-war-against-ghostbusters-and-leslie-jones/ GamerGate’s war against Ghostbusters and Leslie Jones

“It is not hard to see that a society that tells us to just “get over” being called an “ape nigger” because it’s “just the internet” would also be perfectly fine telling us to “get over” slavery because it’s “in the past” and to “get over” the murder of black people by cops because “they should have complied.” It is not hard to see that a society that tells us to “get over” being told that someone hopes we “are raped to death” because it’s “just the internet” would also be perfectly fine telling rape victims to “get over” their rapes because it’s just “boys being boys.””https://theestablishment.co/we-shouldnt-get-used-to-online-abuse-9c97340278e4

We Shouldn’t Get Used To Online Abuse

“Lewis-Hasteley has also been surprised by some of the reaction to the growing campaign to protect women writers from this verbal abuse. “Someone asked me if I didn’t realise that I wasn’t really going to be raped. But the threat of sexual violence is an attack in itself, and some commentators have their Facebook pages searched, and their home addresses tracked. It’s a real feeling of being hunted by these people.”” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/05/women-bloggers-hateful-trolling Women bloggers call for a stop to ‘hateful’ trolling by misogynist men

“It’s time we discussed the radicalisation of angry, young white men in a similar way. The manosphere gave us Elliot Rodger. He was a regular on the forum “PUAhate” – populated by bitter men who had tried the techniques advocated by so-called “pick-up artists” to attract women and failed.Reading through the posting history of individual aliases, it’s possible to chart their progress from vague dissatisfaction, and desire for social status and sexual success, to full-blown adherence to a cohesive ideology of white supremacy and misogyny. Neofascists treat these websites as recruitment grounds. They find angry, frustrated young men and groom them in their own image. Yet there’s no Prevent equivalent to try to stamp this out.”https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/15/alt-right-manosphere-mainstream-politics-breitbartWe need to talk about the online radicalisation of young, white men

“One floor of the school’s dorms held the fraternity Kappa Alpha Order. She noted that the way to spot the floor was every window held a Confederate flag.“Those flags never let me forget that I was not wanted at any point in history, not then and not now, not in my temporary home, the place where I slept, the place my mother was spending her hard-earned money to send me,” Clayton said.
After writing the wrenching article, someone sent her a link to an opposing article written by someone at the school calling her a liar. They said the discrimination conservatives face now comes at the hands of those seeking “diversity,” which “is an attack on whiteness.”
Not long after, she found out about Adkins posting an article about attacking non-Republicans on the website she works for. It even references her experience. He claimed that within his first week on campus he’d already made enemies simply because he was a Republican.
“After I wrote the piece that I wrote I was v worried about people not believing me,” Clayton wrote on Twitter. “I was flat out called a liar by some. I was called a liar by people who went to school with me, people who saw that sh*t happened. So, I worried about not being believed [sic].””http://www.rawstory.com/2017/04/buzzfeed-writer-responds-in-horror-after-trump-fan-who-once-attacked-her-online-hacks-student-at-her-alma-mater/ Buzzfeed writer horrified to learn that Kentucky machete attacker was her online troll

“Twitter, for the past five years, has been a machine where I put in unpaid work and tension headaches come out. I write jokes there for free. I post political commentary for free. I answer questions for free. I teach feminism 101 for free. Off Twitter, these are all things by which I make my living – in fact, they comprise the totality of my income. But on Twitter, I do them pro bono and, in return, I am micromanaged in real time by strangers; neo-Nazis mine my personal life for vulnerabilities to exploit; and men enjoy unfettered, direct access to my brain so they can inform me, for the thousandth time, that they would gladly rape me if I weren’t so fat.”https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/03/ive-left-twitter-unusable-anyone-but-trolls-robots-dictators-lindy-westI’ve left Twitter. It is unusable for anyone but trolls, robots and dictators

“These ruthless attacks and harassment go beyond personal disagreements. The language used in these attacks are often deliberately chosen from the pool of women-focused, racial, or gender-identity based slurs. This affects not only the person targeted but also the bystanders, creating a chilling effect for women thinking of participating in public life. In an article on Mother Jones, Jaclyn Friedman, the executive director for Women, Action and the Media, says “The idea that a social-media network should be entirely neutral is a myth, [n]eutral platforms are only neutral for straight white dudes. These companies need to make a decision: Do I want to be making a money off of a platform where abusers and harassers feel more comfortable than the abused and harassed?”The irony is that while those flinging these insults or participating in harassment cry free speech as a justification, they limit others in their ability to speak freely.” http://www.policymic.com/articles/6…6 Insidious Ways Social Media Can Be Used to Silence Women

https://www.facebook.com/NowThisNews/videos/1050620138361443/ Watch men read the hateful tweets that female sport writers deal with everyday -Moderators have the obligation to forbid this abusive behavior, delete it, and ban and block the abusers. This is not free speech, this is abuse and harassment. Free speech is their right to create their own venue for this crap. This includes activists in our own spaces, groups, pages and walls. NO ABUSE.

Hilde Kate Lysiak, a 9-year-old reporter who wrote about a suspected murder in her small Pennsylvania town, has defended herself after some locals said a young girl should be “playing with dolls” and not covering serious crime: “If you want me to stop covering news, then you get off your computer and do something about the news. There, is that cute enough for you?” https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/apr/06/nine-year-old-us-reporter-defiant-after-critics-say-go-back-to-playing-with-dolls

Nine-year-old US reporter defiant after critics say ‘go back to playing with dolls’

“She had been getting bullied for a long time, to the point where the happy, bubbly girl that I knew changed,” she said. “They hacked into her email and they created a Facebook page and they massacred her.” http://thegrio.com/2015/03/06/mother-bullying-online-teen-suicide/ Mother Says Cyber-Bullying Drove 14-Yr-Old Daughter To Suicide

“73% of women have experienced cyber violence, according to a new report “Cyber violence is just as damaging to women as physical violence, according to a new U.N. report, which warns women are growing even more vulnerable to cyber violence as more and more regions gain internet access.” http://time.com/4049106/un-cyber-violence-physical-violence/U.N. Says Cyber Violence Is Equivalent to Physical Violence Against Women

“Ignore the barrage of violent threats and harassing messages that confront you online every day.” That’s what women are told. But these relentless messages are an assault on women’s careers, their psychological bandwidth, and their freedom to live online. We have been thinking about Internet harassment all wrong….None of this makes me exceptional. It just makes me a woman with an Internet connection. Here’s just a sampling of the noxious online commentary directed at other women in recent years. To Alyssa Royse, a sex and relationships blogger, for saying that she hated The Dark Knight: “you are clearly retarded, i hope someone shoots then rapes you.” To Kathy Sierra, a technology writer, for blogging about software, coding, and design: “i hope someone slits your throat and cums down your gob.” To Lindy West, a writer at the women’s website Jezebel, for critiquing a comedian’s rape joke: “I just want to rape her with a traffic cone.” To Rebecca Watson, an atheist commentator, for blogging about sexism in the skeptic community: “If I lived in Boston I’d put a bullet in your brain.” To Catherine Mayer, a journalist at Time magazine, for no particular reason: “A BOMB HAS BEEN PLACED OUTSIDE YOUR HOME. IT WILL GO OFF AT EXACTLY 10:47 PM ON A TIMER AND TRIGGER DESTROYING EVERYTHING.” http://www.motherjones.com/mixed-media/2014/01/amanda-hess-why-women-arent-welcome-internet Amanda Hess: “Why Women Aren’t Welcome on the Internet”